


Full of Grace, Painted Blind

by necrora



Category: Supernatural
Genre: First Blade, Gen, Gore, Mark of Cain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 20:14:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1562606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/necrora/pseuds/necrora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cain betrays Crowley. Crowley betrays Dean. Dean betrays Sam. Sam gets everyone to calm the fuck down. Not necessarily in that order. </p>
<p>Or: They say that there are two brothers. One had gentle eyes, the other a gentle mouth. One is on Earth, the other in Hell, and they’re each amassing an army. One killed the other. One died for the other. They will never see each other again. </p>
<p>Written for Antichristmas 2014 at Sammessiah</p>
            </blockquote>





	Full of Grace, Painted Blind

The sun was setting when Crowley dropped next to Cain and said, “Magnus was first.”

Cain was washing dishes, soap lathered up to his elbows as he held a dainty tea cup under the water. He shook it, put it on the rack to dry, and picked up a saucer. “Good.”

“It’s not Abaddon.” Cain put Crowley on edge. The man was stronger than the Knights of Hell and hated demons more. But right now, Crowley knew he was useful to Cain. He’d pulled off worse gambles before.

“It’s still not a bad choice for the Blade’s first blood.” Cain passed the clean saucer. Crowley held it awkwardly in his hands, the gold-gilded edges and painted roses accentuated against the pale porcelain, and picked up a dishtowel. He was nervous at how thin the saucer felt in his thick fingers.

“I suppose not. It’s an aged human soul.” Magnus was powerful and had been exposed to magic over a long period of time. Crowley reflected he was kindred to Cain, but he wasn’t going to mention that.

Cain turned the water off. The sun was a sliver on the horizon, shining a last ray through the window. It colored the curtains dusty pink.

“And is Dean Winchester ready?”

“Yes.”

Cain raised his eyebrows.

Crowley remembered back to the scene outside of Magnus’ house—Dean by his Impala, turning around to kill Crowley but also turning away from Sam; Sam, who had whispered _Crowley is only useful until we have the Blade we have the Blade Dean_ ; and Dean, who had nodded and ducked out from under Sam’s wings. Crowley imagined the bones that jutted out from Sam’s shoulder blades, rotten flesh clinging to jagged bone that stretched out towards the sky and around him, but Dean had not been in those winged shadows and their spotty discoloration upon the ground.

“Yes,” Crowley said again, and licked his lips. “The Hound is ready.”

::

The Blade’s second kill was a nameless faceless demon. So was the third, the fourth, the fifth.

Then the Blade sliced into a demon who didn’t run when the Winchesters strolled in with their heavy boots knocking on the floor, and Dean didn’t know it but the demon was a direct descendant from Lilith: a fledgling whose name Crowley _almost_ recalled—which was saying something, in fact.

Hidden in the shadows, Crowley watched Dean smoothly slit the throat of the sandy-haired man Lilith’s child had been wearing, all bravado rendered useless with Winchester hands holding him down. The blood seeped happily into the ridges and rifts of the bone-blade and Sam frowned at it, taking it gently from Dean’s hands to inspect it closer, but only Crowley could see the soul that the Blade had reaped.

“Maybe you shouldn’t use this until you find Abaddon,” Sam said, turning the Blade in his hands.

“Knife is a knife, Sammy. And it’s a good knife.” Dean’s gaze was clean as he looked back. Confident. Empty.

Sam didn’t have bangs anymore but his eyes still shadowed like an innocent puppy’s. “Dean, your arm glows.”

“Your freaky hair glows.”

Dean wasn’t listening to Sam, but he wasn’t reaching for the Blade either, which remained securely in Sam’s hands as the two walked out of the job that Crowley had set up for them.

Sam wasn’t going to be there anymore when the Blade killed, Crowley decided. The moose only interfered with the harvesting.

In truth, Crowley would have slept so much better if Sam had been the one to take the Mark. Of the two brothers, Sam was the more unpredictable and slippery, and while Dean was easy to manipulate if Sam was under the influence, the opposite was not nearly as true: Sam was more likely to pull Dean out than come along for a _buy one Winchester, get one free_ deal.

But the Blade wanted first sons, and first sons it would get. And once it gorged itself and turned on Dean, there wouldn’t be anything remotely Winchester left in the man.

::

“Not yet,” Cain said, two weeks later when Crowley showed up after Dean had plunged the knife into Azazel’s nephew.

The late demon’s eyes had even had a tint of yellow in them. Crowley nodded. _Stay useful._

::

Sam aimed an apple at his brother’s head. Dean sat at the table with his feet up, thumbing through a magazine. He caught the apple behind him without looking.

It took fifteen steps to walk to Dean. Sam counted the steps carefully, looked back to measure how far it had been—he had long legs—then glanced down over his brother’s shoulder.

“Dude, there’s an issue of _Busty Asian Beauties_ you haven’t gotten to yet?”

“Gotta review them at least three times, Sammy. Otherwise I’d be offending these beautiful ladies.”

Sam considered the full-spread naked woman for a moment, the light reflecting off the glossy surface. He shifted his eyes so he could study Dean without being noticed in turn. There was nothing to indicate that Dean was actually ‘reading’ his favorite porn: no flush, no hint of any arousal, not even a shit-eating grin lingering at the corners of his mouth. Dean wasn’t enjoying himself any more than Sam had seen him enjoy _Lord of the Flies_ twenty years ago in high school.

“How was the hunt?” Sam asked, because the glow still hadn’t faded from Dean’s arm and he could smell the iron tang and outside air. It meant Dean had gone out hunting without telling Sam, and it meant he had come back and flipped open a skin mag without washing the blood out.

“Good. Got three of them. One tried to smoke out, but I think the knife can stab the smoke, or something.” Dean turned the page to more naked ladies and shrugged.

“Huh.” Sam thought about that. “Where is it? Maybe I should research it some more.”

“In my room.” Dean turned his head slightly. “Careful touching it. Crowley’s hand near came off when he tried to take it back this time.”

Sam lifted himself up, retraced his steps back the way he came. After twenty-five steps, out of sight, he threw a second apple into the room through the door in Dean’s general direction.

When he poked his head in, Dean’s hand was clutching both apples, having caught the second one without letting go of the first. Dean looked up, quirked an eyebrow, and went back to reading. He didn’t comment on the barrage of apples coming his way.

“Okay,” Sam said.

::                                                         

“I have a proposition for you,” Crowley said.

“I have one for you,” Abaddon said. Her voice purred, silky as a cat’s and just as violent in the morning, her hands working to erase the temporary bonds. It had taken Crowley three of his men to drop those on Abaddon. “You start crawling now, and I won’t kill you in a few minutes when I get out of these.”

Crowley thought of his mansion in Hell and his new tailor, his status as king without the bitch in front of him, and then he thought of Cain from last night, the dusty rose curtain silhouetting the man as he finally nodded _now_ at Crowley.

He said, “I have a gift for you: Henry’s youngest. Want him?”

::

When Dean walked through the door, Sam was sitting in the chair with his legs spread and his head tilted. Abaddon stood behind him with one hand caressing his neck and the other holding a dagger.

Crowley crouched in the background, behind Dean, melted into the shadows. He wasn’t part of this play, this déjà vu played by Henry’s grandsons. He was one of the props, a working part of the scene.

“Let me guess,” Dean said. He had stopped halfway through the factory, the grey cement pressing on him from all sides. “I take one step closer, and you snap Sammy’s neck. That it?”

Abaddon flashed her teeth. “Oh baby,” she said, voice smooth, all smoke and miasma. “You take one step closer, and I drop my wrist onto darling Sammy’s mouth.”

In one elegant movement, she took the knife in her hand and flicked it across her wrist. Tantalizingly, she rubbed her wrist all the way across Sam’s chin, leaving a path of red like paintbrush. Under Sam’s eyebrows, a slowly dimming gaze met Dean’s eyes. Sam’s mouth opened, but the blood was smeared all over his skin, just below his lips, and he stopped whatever he had been about to say, frozen in place.

“Don’t you fucking dare, you bitch,” Dean said, evenly.

“I don’t think Sam’s ever had my blood,” Abaddon murmured, dipping her head closer to Sam’s, licking her lips. Her eyes remained on Dean. “How do you think he’ll like it, Dean? How strong do you think he’ll be with it? How addicted?”

“Dean,” Sam said. His voice was faint.

Dean fixed his grip on the Blade. Took a step back. Shrugged. “ _Baby_ ,” he said, slowly, sooty tone reserved for pretty girls at bars with a hint of danger underneath. “You do it, you sign your own death sentence. Sam’ll take you out without me moving a muscle.”

Crowley was impressed. Mostly at the man’s poker face.

Abaddon’s nails scratched against the side of Sam’s face. Sam flinched. “Nice try,” she said.

Dean’s grin was all lazy power. “Bitch, you haven’t met my brother, have you? You were too busy playing hopscotch with time. He took out Famine by himself after a couple of low-grade demons. He took on Lucifer after a few bottled gallons.” He said, “Smear your filthy stench any closer to his mouth, and he’ll make you lick his boots before you walk voluntarily onto this blade here.”

Beads of blood was forming on Sam’s skin, under Abaddon’s sharp nails digging in. “You’re lying,” she said, flatly. “You’re bluffing. It won’t work on me. Even so,” she said, “Even so, you wouldn’t risk it. He’d be riding the high into next year.”

“Eh,” Dean said. His eyes didn’t move away from where Sam’s blood was trickling down his face. Dean’s teeth were set. “It’ll be painful. Think it’ll be worth it, Sammy?”

“Depends,” Sam said. His voice was low and strained, but not from fear or pain. “Depends on how many pieces you figure on tearing this bitch into.”

“You’re bluffing,” Abaddon repeated. Her tongue darted out between her teeth, like a serpent’s.

“Then do it,” Dean taunted. He took a few steps forward, which was a few more than Crowley expected of the man. “Do it, bitch. And we’ll erase your sorry existence from this earth.”

Abaddon let out a high, thundering screech. The scream shook the beams, threatened to cave the ceiling. Neither brother nor Crowley moved, though rather, Crowley thought, each for his own reasons.

She flipped her head back, releasing her tight grip on Sam’s face. “Fine,” she spat. “Fine. We do this the old-fashioned way.” She cleared her throat. “You come any closer with that little toy of yours that Daddy gave you, Dean, and I snap Sammy’s neck.”

“Ah,” Dean said.

That’s what Crowley thought. Dean wouldn’t actually risk it. Crowley stood up to distract her. He stepped out just in time to see Sam twist his body and lunge in one same movement, and bite deeply into Abaddon’s neck.

He felt Abaddon’s knees hit the floor all the way across the room, her strangled gasp cutting off as Sam brought both hands up and twisted her neck, ripping and clawing at the wound as his mouth plunged deeper. He heard the sound of liquid gurgling out as Sam sucked.

Abaddon threw Sam, flinging him hard against the wall. Sam’s bones met the wall with a sickening crunch. It was a few seconds too late.

Dean moved in, kicked hard into Abaddon’s chest, toppled her over. The Blade sliced into her broken neck once, twice, thrice. Her screams cut off, dying into a whimper of a dissipating soul as it dove into her guts and tore out the insides.

Crowley ran. He hadn’t run since his athletic calves bounced under a kilt, but he ran this time.

Sam pushed off the wall and pulled Dean away from the body, easily detaching his brother. He didn’t even look at Crowley, and the demon felt his body fly, shoved past the brothers, into the very wall that Sam had been hanging from a few seconds ago. Sam’s lips were stained red but he didn’t lick as he slowly turned to Crowley, dragging a non-resisting Dean.

Well, fuck.

“Dean,” Sam said. His skin was flushed rosy and his irises clouded red smoke. “The job’s done. Here’s your next one.”

Crowley gave another jerk and found his arms pinned even harder. His pulse quickened at the sight of Dean’s blank eyes and Sam’s grin, and he saw the way Sam’s eyes darkened, like they could hear Crowley’s dead blood speeding up, like Crowley was nothing but a nice barrel of wine that Sam intended to pop open and enjoy very, very soon.

But the Mark was still growing, and as fierce as Sam’s grin was, Crowley knew he had one shot. He gathered up all the power left, hoped to all blazes of Lucifer’s wings that he was still recognized as king, and flung it towards Dean. Sam jerked, letting Crowley know that he had felt it, but it slammed into Dean nonetheless.

“Dean,” Sam said.

The Hound licked his lips.

_He’s not listening_ , Crowley realized with glee. The Hound’s eyes colored so prettily, glowing orange and red and the color of the sea when the sun sank irrevocably into it for another night, as the light bled from the Mark and dripped towards the bone. He lifted the Blade, poised it, and hesitated.

“Dean,” Sam said, softly.

And the Hound plunged the Blade into his own heart.

_Yes yes yes_ Crowley’s heart shouted, and he heard the entire pack of hellhounds pick up his cry and howl, baying from all corners of Hell as they began rushing towards their master, to celebrate the new one—

—even as Sam shouted a single _No!_ and lunged for his brother, and Crowley imagined the rotten-flesh-marrow-bone wings unfurling above Sam and Dean Winchester’s heads in a fury, even as Sam pulled the Blade off and Dean choked up blood all over Sam.

Two hellhounds showed up by the door, galloping towards Sam. Crowley lifted his hand to shove the younger Winchester aside and seal fate for good, and found himself petrified in place as Sam’s hands wrapped around Dean’s, still holding the Blade, and together they slid it into Sam’s heart.

_The fuck_ , went Crowley’s mind as the ground began shaking. Cracks spread out from Sam’s feet as he threw his head back, the Blade sinking in even deeper, and Sam Winchester let out an inhuman cry. Hot air and pure power burst forth, and Crowley saw all his hellhounds flattened in the half a second he had before he could find it in himself to

_run_.

The moon was rising when Crowley dropped next to Cain.

“Something went wrong,” he gasped out. “The younger one got in the way. I should have killed him, tore his limbs apart when I had the chance. He interfered with the transformation—”

Cain was out of his chair immediately, gripping Crowley’s shoulder and shaking him. Pain shot throughout his body and Crowley moaned. He hoped he was still useful.

“What happened?” Cain demanded harshly.

“The Hound had the Blade halfway to his heart,” Crowley gritted out. “The transformation was about to begin, but Sam Winchester interfered. He took the Blade instead, and now the souls are inside _him_.”

The next moment, Crowley crumpled to the floor as Cain stepped back. The strangest expression passed over Cain’s face, and Crowley felt icy fingers grip his non-beating heart and squeeze.

“You fool,” Cain said, quite unnecessarily, considering the way the sky’s crumbs were falling down by Crowley’s ears and he numbly heard the thump thump of his demon blood before he realized how stupid he had been. How useful. “There is no Hound. The Blade was always meant for the vessel. I suppose the older brother tried to take it in his stead, as it goes—but Samuel couldn’t avoid his fate any more than I could. He will open the Cage and Lucifer will walk again.”

_Oh you fucker_ , Crowley thought, the modern profanity coming to him along with a dozen other words running through his mind, jackrabbiting in time with his blood too close to the surface, trying to worm its way out the pores of his skin. _You fucker_. He was referring to himself.

Cain stepped forward and laid a gentle hand over Crowley’s heart. “You were a wonderful demon,” Cain told him. “You will make a nice last meal for the vessel, before he opens the Cage again.”

Inexorably, Cain’s fingertips breached Crowley’s suit, went through his melting skin, and touched the tip of his heart.

“Step away from him.”

Cain’s hand jerked, then his arm, then his entire body, marionetting the few steps back. Crowley sank to his knees, feeling the cracks in his heart desperately try to mend.

Winchester stood in the doorway. Slick, unseen goo bubbled and flowed just above his skin. It made him look eerily phantom-like, more ghostly than any spirit. _That’s hellhound blood_ , a corner of Crowley’s mind registered.

“I was going to deliver him,” Cain said.

“I know,” Winchester said. “I have other plans for him.”

Cain pushed himself up. Winchester’s fingers twitched, but Cain stood solid. “You can’t hurt me. Not yet.”

Winchester’s lips curled back, then gentled in amusement. “My brother thanks you for all you’ve done,” he said, then lifted his hand.

Cain's body exploded. Chunks of organs flung out, hitting the walls with a sickening plop. Blood sprayed the air into specks tiny enough that they floated gently down to the rugs on the floor. An eyeball that mostly retained its shape rolled and hit Crowley’s knees. He had only seen something like that a few times before, and it was always an angel on the other side of that disgusting disaster.

“Your wings,” Crowley babbled when Winchester grabbed his collars and dragged him up. “Your fucking wings.”

Winchester raised an eyebrow, and everything went black.

::

When Crowley came to, he was tied in a chair below a Devil’s Trap and the Devil sat smiling at him from across the garage.

No, not the Devil. It was Sam Winchester. Probably laying out the napkins for his last dinner, before he called Lucifer for wining and dining.

Sam was perched on a stool, one leg dangling and the other supported by a rung, a hand on his thigh. He watched Crowley thoughtfully. There was nothing to show the sheer power that must be coursing through his veins, the addiction and the temptation that must be pulling at every nerve ending. The stern set of his mouth was the same, as was the vulnerable slant at the corners of his eyes.

Sam always looked like he carried immense power within him. Sam always had that damnable tilt to his narrow eyes that said _a good man_. It was why Crowley never trusted the man, always knew he’d fuck everything up, an unstoppable force. And now he was about to be vindicated.

“You know, just out of curiosity,” Sam said, “what _did_ Cain tell you, to join this charade? What did you think was going to happen when Dean finished harvesting?”

“You’re not going to open the Cage,” Crowley said. “You didn’t nearly kill yourself to close it just to dance the tango now.”

A knock echoed before Sam could answer. Sam glanced at the wall, and the cement slid apart of its own volition, revealing a grinning Dean Winchester.

“Heya, Crowley,” Dean said, stepping in. The wall slid together again behind him, melding seamlessly. “So nice of you to join us. Again.”

“Dean.” Sam rolled his eyes behind his brother.

“The guy was two-timing me and I don’t get to play?”

Sam grabbed his brother by the neck of his jacket and pulled him back. “We have a lot of work to do. You find out any information from the angels?”

Dean’s eyes were averted from his brother as he let himself be held in place by the nape. “Yeah. Operation Bobby is a no-go. Heaven’s still closed.”

And really, Crowley should have known better, but he couldn’t help the bark of laughter that escaped his throat, because he knew now where this complicated danse macabre had been leading to, all this time. “You two are going to close the gates of Hell. Again.”

Neither Winchester looked at him, and Crowley knew he was right. He laughed again, tinged with madness. “You’re going to kill yourself. To close Hell. Great reign, boy king. Nice. Long-lasting.”

Sam didn't move from where he was sitting. Crowley coughed up blood, felt his guts twist and lunge into his own flesh. The marrow inside his bones scritch-scritch-scritched on the inside walls, desperate to leak out of his body. He’d never wanted to die before, Crowley, and he wasn’t about to start now but this pain, this came close.

“All right,” Sam said to Dean. “We improvise. We can’t flip the automatic switch, but we can close it manually. Think God made the Cage’s door a little stronger than Hell’s doors, so I’m pretty sure I can hold them closed when I get there.”

_You're not Lucifer yet_ , Crowley wanted to say, but he wasn't a fucking fool and the power that Sam was packing, with or without the Devil inside him? Yeah, Sam could probably at the very least rip Crowley apart. Abaddon’s power was in Sam and that was only one of the souls melded to Sam’s fingertips.

“When we get there,” Dean said, his voice odd.

“Dean,” Sam said.

Crowley said, “It won’t work.” He watched closely, and while Sam was probably half a step away from smiting him again, it was Dean he paid attention to. “The power’s meant to open the Cage. Once Moose over there drags all the demons down and slams the gates shut, he won’t have the juice to protect himself. The demons will tear him apart.”

Crowley got another slam in the guts for that. Sam didn’t even glance at him. But Dean had.

“Dean,” Sam said again, warning in his voice.

Dean hung back on his heels, rocking. “That sound true, Sammy?”

A muscle ticked in Sam's cheek. Crowley reflected that these two got under each other’s skin with mere words better than a demon with a centuries-old plan, rife with betrayal, could. “Does it matter?”

Dean carefully studied Sam. “Depends. You feel like munching on anything red and sticky and sulfur?”

“No,” Sam said. “No, I don’t, Dean. Now can I start?”

The older brother stood in front of the younger, who was still perched on the stool, the king of Hell tied behind him and the Blade in his hand. Sam’s chest was level with Dean’s mouth, which was curved with irony and sadness. “Sammy.”

“You can’t come, Dean,” Sam said gently. “And we can’t wait. Something’s going to go wrong if we wait. It always does. Better to clear out the demons, and then work on the angels. I’m sorry I won’t be here to help, but you’ll be fine.”

Dean’s eyes were hard but the muscle in his cheeks that tightened wasn’t from any anger.

“Say okay,” Sam prompted.       

Dean said, “I’m sorry.”

Crowley never figured out why Sam didn’t see it coming: Sam, hyped up on the wine of Hell’s own archdukes. Sam was distracted by the blood; Sam was weakened by the look on his brother’s face that he always saw when he was leaving; Sam’s weakness always had been his brother. It all boiled down to the stake in his chest, the pointy end in his body and the other end in his brother’s hand.

Dean plunged the stake, hard, through Sam’s body.

“ _Dean_.”

The voice was all wrong, human and weak and crying, a college boy who got stabbed in the back and staggered towards the safety net he’d known all his life. Sam’s hand came up to grab the stake, and the wood sprung to life and grew vines, wrapping around his hand and then his body, thorns digging into his skin. A mocking crown wrapped around his forehead and tightened. Sam let out a wordless cry, loud, blood gurgling up from his mouth and streaming from his eyes, and yes, those were definitely bloodied wings behind him, elongating and casting a flood of red spraying from its ends.

“Five minutes,” Dean said, backing up. A tremor lingered in his tone and his gait. “That’s what Cas said. The bonds that held Lucifer down when Michael struck. It’ll only be five minutes.”

He turned away from his screaming brother and towards Crowley, closing the distance in huge steps and pulling syringe out of his pocket.

Crowley felt Winchester hands on him, one holding him down as the other jerked back his sleeve. It picked up the syringe, then hesitated, just above his skin.

“Don’t.” Fury uncurled in Sam’s voice, already dripping with power as the bonds began to weaken. “Fucking. Don’t.”

Crowley’s eyes were directly in line with the gentle lips as they opened, closed, then smiled.

"Everything I confessed out there, Sammy. The Best Of album of my life, man, my greatest sins. It was how many times I let you down. I’m so sorry.”

The needle pricked Crowley’s skin.

::

In Nebraska, a storm hesitated just outside of Omaha before dissipating. In New York, several executives in the Financial District threw up all over their Dell computers.

At Berkeley, Patrick opened the door at the end of his dorm hallway, after five days of smelling garbage and fish. He found a rotting corpse lying in bed with no note, but clear signs of an episode, all the chairs in the room flipped over and the body’s arms scratched up. A nail was stuck in the flesh, missing from the body’s right middle finger.

Patrick called the campus police and then his older brother, who was an Afghanistan veteran. His brother listened, then took the bus to California from Oregon. The bus crashed somewhere on I-5N when the driver was attacked by a passenger with a broken bottle, who had been increasingly unstable throughout the ride, scratching out strange symbols on his own skin.

In Texas, a plane crashed.

In Kansas, Sam coughed up blood, rolled over and spat the glob onto the floor. It disappeared into the concrete. His hand came to his forehead and to his chest and found nothing. A few steps away, Crowley’s body lay limp, half in the trap and half outside of it. It looked like the body had been alive for at least a few minutes, tried to crawl to help before the soul finally gave up.

::

The bar is clean and well-lighted, mahogany lining the tables, and the man Jane is speaking to has gentle eyes sloped so earnestly, a good man’s voice ringing as he talks to her about how lost he feels. How many people he has lost. He hasn’t given her many details but she gets the feeling that there’s a lot of deaths, and a brother in jail somewhere, sick and dying, and there’s no one else left in the family to help.

“He was so mad last time I didn’t go back for him,” the man says, and Jane lays a hand on his arm and tells him it wasn’t his responsibility, there are only so many things he could do, even for family.

He’s just lonely, she thinks, like every other person who comes to a bar alone. He carefully curls the words around his tongue, not like he’s trying not to slur his words but like he’s not used to speaking. Like he hasn’t talked to anyone for a long, long time.

When the man trails off into another silence, she shakes her head in sympathy. "My aunt," Jane says, “she was in a coma for a long time, and she nearly died. She actually did for a few seconds, I think the doctors said. But then she jerked up, and you know what the first thing she said was?”

The man tilts his glass towards her, silently, the beer swirling, but the gesture is not unkind. He’s listening.

“She asked for fries,” Jane says, because once you start telling a story you have to finish it. “My point is that just before death, things weigh about the same, you know? Fries are as important as your mother. A knife to the heart is as unimportant as a gun to the head. Nada y pues nada y nada y pues nada.”

“Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name,” the man faithfully quotes. “Hail full of nothing, nothing is with thee.” He has a wry smile in the corner of his lips and the beginnings of a dimple on his cheeks. “Are you normally so existentialist in bars at night? Nothing fateful about you coming here tonight?”

“Nothing,” the girl whose aunt had miraculously woken up from a coma says. “And nothing to do with us meeting, and talking, and you knowing that quote as well as I do.”

“Absolutely none,” the man agrees. He scoots closer. “Hey,” he says into her ear, “you’ve got something on your lips.”

His thumb brushes against her mouth. It’s rude, but not as much as the fact that his thumb is wet, and her tongue inadvertently touches the substance smeared across her lip.

Jane stumbles out of her seat. She stares at the man, but the room is spinning and everything is suddenly colorful, too colorful, the dark and the bright brought into sharper focus than her humans eyes had ever experienced. A whimper escapes her throat as she feels the taint begin inside her, spreading warmly through her body and curling around her like a kitten that’s finally found itself home.

“Oh my—” _God_ , she wants to say, but the word gets stuck in her throat, won’t come out, stays there and poisons her voice box.

She’s never seen the color that the light bulb is giving off before tonight, can’t figure out what on earth such a color might be called, and her ears are picking up the sound of a night cat sneaking across the garbage cans behind the backdoor of the bar, but she can’t say the name of her Lord, not anymore.

“Yeah,” the man says, and sighs. He pulls his legs back and finishes his beer. “You’re my first,” he admits. “But I think it’s a good start.”

Nobody in the bar bats an eye, nobody notices her, as she falls to her knees. The man sits there calmly, but she can hear his heartbeat now, much too powerful to be pumping human blood, and she feels her own pounding in time with his.

“My lord,” she says. The words fit right in her mouth.

Sam nods and stands up. His eyes are as guileless as before, an innocent tint of gold on a man whose face is as open as a young boy’s. “We have a lot of work to do,” he says.

::

_They say there are two brothers. One had gentle eyes, the other a gentle mouth. One is on Earth, the other in Hell, and they’re each amassing an army. One killed the other. One died for the other. They say they will never see each other again._

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. The prompt had been: The first blade was Cain's weapon, but Cain was also in Lucifer's service, that was part of the deal. He still is. The blade doesn't just make Dean the perfect killer, it's a soul-harvester that acts as a conduit for the vessel of Lucifer. Every soul Dean kills feeds the blade until finally he's compelled to drive it into the heart of Lucifer's vessel, his brother. Of course, that's just what he was meant to do. Once the blade pierces Sam's heart, it pours all the souls Dean has killed into Sam, turning his powers back on bigtime. Cain's intent was to make Sam able to crack open the cage and free Lucifer again, but Sam and Dean have other plans.
> 
> 2\. There is probably a special place in Hell for little fics whose summaries give away the entire ending before the first line. 
> 
> 3\. Thanks so much to Quickreaver for the beta, she helped tighten this up so much better than I could have hoped on my own.


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